


2 AM, and he calls her…

by explodingsnapple



Series: Cheers to the 99th Precinct! [8]
Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Canon Compliant, Episode: s02e14 Defense Rests, F/M, Jake Peralta/Sophia Perez (Mentioned) - Freeform, Late Night Conversations, Missing Scene, Pre-Relationship, Sophia Perez (Mentioned), Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-30
Updated: 2019-08-30
Packaged: 2020-09-30 17:16:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20450711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/explodingsnapple/pseuds/explodingsnapple
Summary: Jake quickly notices that the charger isn’t his at all – it’s Sophia’s. The book on the bedside table isn’t his either, nor is the air purifier. As he looks around him, each reminder of his (now ex-)girlfriend adds to his growing sense of claustrophobia and restlessness.---“It’s just that breakups are hard, you know?” There’s a note of tiredness – no, resignedness – in his voice that makes Amy’s heart break for him all over again.(Post-2x14)





	2 AM, and he calls her…

**Author's Note:**

> Written in response to the prompts “I’ve been in love with you for years” and “I called you at 2 AM because I need you,” requested by @rosalitadiazz, @amyscascadingtabs, @kamekamelea, and an anonymous user on Tumblr.

It’s well past midnight when Jake finally leaves Shaw’s and goes home. He barely manages to keep his hands still long enough to shove his key into the lock and open the door to his apartment, although whether that’s due to his deep state of inebriation or dispiritedness is still up for debate. Almost on autopilot, he walks the familiar path over the clothes pile, around the carpet-stain, and under the basketball-hoop to his bed, where he collapses face-first in a position vaguely resembling that of a starfish. All he wants to do is sleep, hoping that when he wakes up, he’ll find that today was just a horrible nightmare.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t happen. Jake’s seconds away from crashing when he realizes his phone is still in his pocket. He sits up to put it in the charger, but quickly notices that the charger isn’t his at all – it’s Sophia’s. The book on the bedside table isn’t his either, nor is the air purifier. As he looks around him, each reminder of his (now ex-)girlfriend adds to his growing sense of claustrophobia and restlessness. He jumps up and grabs an empty cardboard box from the corner, suddenly incapable of staying in the room while it’s like this.

Gingerly, he unplugs the charger from the wall and puts it in the box. The book and the air purifier soon follow. He walks around the apartment and works almost deliriously, his last conversation with Sophia replaying continuously in his head.

_ “Well, it's kinda serious to me. I've accidentally said, ‘I love you,’ like, four times already.” _

_ “I know. I- I just don't think I accidentally love you back,” Sophia replies. _

Voicing his feelings out loud has always been something he’s struggled with, and he doesn’t do so lightly, even if by accident.

Her toothbrush and half-empty perfume bottle go into the box.

_ “That's work I'm willing to do,” Jake pleads. _

_ “I'm not. I'm sorry.” _

She didn’t want to try. Their relationship wasn’t important enough – _he _wasn’t important enough. Jake respects that, of course. But if a girl with as much in common with him as Sophia can’t see their relationship as something worth fighting for, what hope does he have?

Her hoodie is in his closet and her bra is on the floor. Both go into the box.

_ “Hey, man, you put yourself out there. You weren't breezy. You should be proud,” Terry tells him, afterward. _

_ All he feels is regretful. _

He knows that he shouldn’t have gone to that party tonight. He shouldn’t have taken matters into his own hands. He shouldn’t have arrested her boss. He shouldn’t have caused a scene. He shouldn’t have, he shouldn’t have, he shouldn’t have. 

He dumps the clothes-pile in his hamper and vacuums every inch of carpet he can find. The candle on the lampstand goes into the box.

_ He’s the mistake. _

All he does is cause trouble. He's quick-witted, but a nuisance to his superiors. He's passionate about his work, but a pain to work with. He's considered entertaining, but only in moderation. Even his dad thought him too much to handle; that’s why he left, isn’t it?

He takes the trash out. A gift card to Wingstop goes into the box. 

_ Everyone leaves. They always do. _

Jake clenches his fists and squeezes his eyes shut, trying to stop the tears building up behind his eyelids. It doesn’t work.

A pair of her earrings, discarded on the kitchen-counter, goes into the box. 

_ He’s always going to be alone. _

He sits by the kitchen, His head resting on his folded arms on the counter. The tiles are sticky.

He gets up and takes a barely-used bottle of multi-surface cleaner out from under the sink. It occurs to him that three months ago, he never would have bought it. Part of him wants the bottle to go straight into the box, but it doesn’t.

_ Alone. Alone. Alone. _

He scrubs and scrubs and scrubs, but the counter remains dirty. He’s so, so tired. 

Tired of trying so hard. Tired of not being able to do anything right. Tired of moping about it. 

_ It’s not like him to get hung up on a girl. _

That’s when it hits him – Amy would know what to do. She sanitizes her desk daily, after all. Without a second thought, Jake picks up his phone and dials her number.

* * *

Amy can’t sleep, and she doesn’t know why. Her laundry is folded, her fridge stocked, and her apartment is relatively clean. The door is locked, the lights are off, and the sink isn’t running. There isn’t anything particularly stressful going on in her life either: she has no open cases, she’s two weeks ahead on her paperwork, and today, she successfully resolved a conflict and now has a wedding to look forward to, for which her only responsibility is to show up. 

And yet, she can’t sleep. No matter how much she tries, her eyes refuse to stay closed. 

Groaning, Amy reaches down grabs her phone. She’s aware of the fact that using electronic devices is probably the easiest way to prolong her insomnia, but nothing else seems to be working. 

She’s halfway through an extremely boring article about pilsners when she gets an incoming call from “Jake McClain” (he changed his name a month ago, and for some reason, she never got around to changing it back). A glance at the time tells her it’s 2:00 AM. _ Why is he calling her so late? _She rubs her eyes and picks up the call, ready to yell at him if it’s about something stupid.

“Amy,” Jake whispers, before taking a deep, raspy breath, loud enough for her to hear through the phone. Amy’s heart grows cold. She saw him and Terry and Captain Holt at Shaw’s drinking copiously earlier and didn’t think anything of it. But now, he doesn’t sound okay at _all_. 

“Is everyone okay? Please say something. you’re scaring me,” she says. In an attempt to keep the worry out of her voice, her words, to her horror, come out far harsher than she wanted them to.

“Sorry, I just– I tried to– cleaning, help,” comes Jake’s mumbled response. _ Cleaning? _ Amy quickly gets out of bed and walks into her living room and starts pacing around. Knowing Jake, he won’t directly tell her whatever it is that's bothering him, which means that she needs to be awake and alert enough to understand what’s going on. 

“Well, what are you trying to clean?” she asks, once again trying to sound calm over the phone despite the rising panic in her chest. This time, thankfully, she succeeds, and Jake seems to have relaxed slightly as well. 

“Just this stupid counter. It’s all sticky, and I bought some multi-surface cleaner a few months ago but have no idea how to use it, and I just vacuumed my entire apartment so I figured I might as well finish the job, you know?” Jake informs her, and Amy raises her eyebrows before realizing that he can’t see her. Clearly, he has no idea what time it is.

“The _entire_ apartment? Has hell frozen over?” Amy jokes, trying to keep the conversation as normal as possible. Over the years, she’s learned that Jake will talk about things when he’s ready, but if you push too hard, he’ll close up. She understands; she does the same thing. 

“Well, it might as well have.” There’s a pause, and Amy waits with bated breath, wondering if he’ll continue or change the subject. Her question is answered when he blurts out, “Sophia broke up with me.”

His news takes Amy by surprise. As far as she knew, the couple had been doing fairly well. Jake talked about her often, and to be honest, Amy was sure that if they survived what happened at the Maple Drip Inn, there’s not much else that could force them apart.

“I’m so sorry. That’s awful.” Amy’s not quite sure what else to say to make him feel better; he sounds so heartbroken that she has a sudden urge to hug him close, although, obviously, she can’t do that. 

“It’s okay. We weren’t even together for that long. I just need this stupid counter cleaned,” he replies, changing the subject, and Amy goes along with it. It’s becoming increasingly obvious to her that whatever’s going on in his head right now stretches beyond just a simple breakup.

“Well, here’s what you do,” she says. “First of all, what brand cleaner do you have?”

“Um, Target?”

“Oh my goodness. We have a lot of work to do.” She settles herself on the couch and starts explaining to Jake that generic-brand cleaners are just about as useful as plain water. _Honestly, how did this man manage to survive to adulthood? _

* * *

“Okay, now just use a Clorox wipe to wipe down the counter one last time, and you’re all set,” Amy says, her phone on speaker as she paints the nails on her left-hand blue. Wearing brightly-colored nail polish is highly unprofessional, but teaching Jake to use a cleaner devolved into a master-class in disinfecting an entire kitchen, and she had to pass time somehow. 

“Thanks, Ames,” Jake replies. “Hey, send me a pic of your nails. I want to see if I’m better at doing them than you.”

“I can’t believe you used to do Gina’s manicures for her,” Amy grins as she snaps a picture. “For the record, I did these with my non-dominant hand, so don’t judge them too harshly.” 

“Hmm, you’re getting there. Your technique shows promise, grasshopper,” Jake says in a voice that resembles a cross between Yoda and Amy’s old Art History professor, causing her to snort in laughter. “But, um, for real, though, thanks for your help today. I really appreciate it,” he says seriously.

“Anytime. But are you _ sure _ you’re okay?” Amy asks cautiously. He seems far better than he was an hour ago, but she just wants to make sure.

“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?” There’s a hint of defensiveness in Jake’s voice that makes Amy uneasy.

“You called me at 2 AM for help _cleaning_. I’m worried about you. I’m allowed to be worried, aren’t I?” 

“I gue– wait, 2 AM? Oh jeez, Ames, I didn’t realize. I thought it was, like, 10 or something.” Amy can just picture him running his hands through his curls as he speaks, the way he always does when he’s stressed.

“No, no, it’s okay, I don’t mind,” she says softly.

“It’s just that breakups are hard, you know?” There’s a note of tiredness – no, resignedness – in his voice that makes Amy’s heart break for him all over again. 

“Yeah, I know.” She grabs a blanket from the chair next to her and wraps it around her shoulders. It looks like she’s going to be awake for a while. “Do you want to talk about it?”

* * *

_There’s a difference, _Jake realizes fairly quickly, _ between what movies tell you about pouring your heart out to someone and actually doing it. _ An awkward silence settles between them for a few seconds as he tries to figure out where to begin, how to put this strange darkness of emotions that he’s feeling into words. In the end, it seems easiest for him to just to start with what happened during the day.

Once he starts talking, though, the words seem to tumble out. As he speaks, he feels the dark cloud hanging over him dissipate ever-so-slowly. Amy remains silent throughout, but he can tell that she’s listening, and he’s grateful for that. 

“Anyway, I kept seeing her stuff around my apartment and it was a little suffocating, you know? That’s why I ended up cleaning so much; I just needed something to take my mind off of everything. That’s the story,” Jake finishes half an hour later. He gets up to grab a glass of orange soda – his throat is parched from all the talking – and settles back on the couch.

“Jake, why did you call me tonight?” Amy asks gently. Her question throws Jake off-guard. 

“What do you mean? Like why didn’t I call Charles instead?” 

She laughs. “I _mean_, you and I both know that your kitchen-counter has been sticky for who-knows-how-many years, but it hasn’t bothered you until now. I’ve even offered to clean it for you too many times to count, and you never seemed interested. It just doesn’t seem like–”

“I just wanted to be able to do something correctly, by myself, for once!” Jake bursts out suddenly, startling himself with the emotion and volume of his words. Amy gasps and Jake immediately feels bad for raising his voice. Softly, he continues, “I guess when I couldn’t figure it out, I needed someone who wouldn’t– someone like–” he pauses. _ I needed you,_ he thinks, and his heart flutters in a way it hasn’t done in a very long time. 

Amy doesn’t seem to realize that he never finished his sentence. “What do you mean, ‘do something correctly, by yourself?’” She demands, shaking him out of his reverie. “You’re one of the best detectives in our precinct. You solve cases the rest of us deem impossible, and you do so with ease. One mistake can’t, and shouldn’t, define you.”

“It’s not just one mistake, though. I just keep doing stupid things and losing people because of it. I told Sophia I loved her, and she left. Even my dad left, and probably because of me. Everyone I ever cared about has, at some point, removed themselves from my life, except my mom and Gina. I wish I could turn back time and fix what went wrong, but I _ can’t_.” Once again, Jake finds himself saying things he didn’t even realize he felt, but it’s strangely relieving, getting his emotions out in the open like that.

“We haven’t.”

“Huh?”

“The Nine-Nine. We haven’t left,” Amy repeats. “You’ve known Charles and Terry for, like, a decade, and they’re still here. Hell, you and Rosa were in the Academy together _years_ ago, and she hasn’t killed you yet, which must mean something. Even Captain Holt thinks of you as a son. We’re a family, Jake, and that means we love and support each other unconditionally.”

“Even you?” Jake asks, only half-seriously. Amy coughs instead of responding, and Jake’s stomach churns.

“Of course, you idiot.” 

For the first time that night, Jake takes a deep breath, exhales, and smiles. 

* * *

Jake goes to bed not long after, mentally and physically exhausted from the day’s events. Amy, on the other hand, _still _can’t sleep. 

This isn’t the first time that she and Jake have spent all night just talking – many years as partners and countless midnight stakeouts took care of that – but it _is_ the first time that they have in a while. 

Things had been different between them after he came back from his stint undercover, and even more so after he started dating Sophia. That was to be expected, of course; they each had other people they could confide in, now. Still, especially post-Teddy, Amy would be lying if she said she didn’t miss their heart-to-heart conversations or late-night food runs. 

Tonight was different. 

A small part of her brain, a part that had been dormant for so long that she almost forgot it existed, continues to dwell on the last part of their conversation. It sends butterflies rising in her stomach when she thinks about Jake asking “Even you?” so carefully and softly, and spreads a happy glow through her chest when she recalls the way he sighed after she answered. 

(It’s also the same part of her brain that nearly made her answer with, “I’ve loved you for years, you idiot,” but that’s beside the point.)

She’s missed him, far more than she cares to admit. 

When Amy eventually does drift off to sleep, it’s with a smile on her face. And when she wakes up the next morning, the butterflies are still there.

(They never truly manage to go away.)

**Author's Note:**

> Title is adapted from the song "Breathe (2 AM)" by Anna Nalick. 
> 
> Thank you guys for reading!


End file.
